Democracy in America, by Alexis de Tocqueville

Chapter 6

That Democratic Institutions And Manners Tend To Raise Rents And Shorten The Terms Of Leases

What has been said of servants and masters is applicable, to a certain extent, to landowners and farming tenants;
but this subject deserves to be considered by itself. In America there are, properly speaking, no tenant farmers; every
man owns the ground he tills. It must be admitted that democratic laws tend greatly to increase the number of
landowners, and to diminish that of farming tenants. Yet what takes place in the United States is much less
attributable to the institutions of the country than to the country itself. In America land is cheap, and anyone may
easily become a landowner; its returns are small, and its produce cannot well be divided between a landowner and a
farmer. America therefore stands alone in this as well as in many other respects, and it would be a mistake to take it
as an example.

I believe that in democratic as well as in aristocratic countries there will be landowners and tenants, but the
connection existing between them will be of a different kind. In aristocracies the hire of a farm is paid to the
landlord, not only in rent, but in respect, regard, and duty; in democracies the whole is paid in cash. When estates
are divided and passed from hand to hand, and the permanent connection which existed between families and the soil is
dissolved, the landowner and the tenant are only casually brought into contact. They meet for a moment to settle the
conditions of the agreement, and then lose sight of each other; they are two strangers brought together by a common
interest, and who keenly talk over a matter of business, the sole object of which is to make money.

In proportion as property is subdivided and wealth distributed over the country, the community is filled with people
whose former opulence is declining, and with others whose fortunes are of recent growth and whose wants increase more
rapidly than their resources. For all such persons the smallest pecuniary profit is a matter of importance, and none of
them feel disposed to waive any of their claims, or to lose any portion of their income. As ranks are intermingled, and
as very large as well as very scanty fortunes become more rare, every day brings the social condition of the landowner
nearer to that of the farmer; the one has not naturally any uncontested superiority over the other; between two men who
are equal, and not at ease in their circumstances, the contract of hire is exclusively an affair of money. A man whose
estate extends over a whole district, and who owns a hundred farms, is well aware of the importance of gaining at the
same time the affections of some thousands of men; this object appears to call for his exertions, and to attain it he
will readily make considerable sacrifices. But he who owns a hundred acres is insensible to similar considerations, and
he cares but little to win the private regard of his tenant.

An aristocracy does not expire like a man in a single day; the aristocratic principle is slowly undermined in men’s
opinion, before it is attacked in their laws. Long before open war is declared against it, the tie which had hitherto
united the higher classes to the lower may be seen to be gradually relaxed. Indifference and contempt are betrayed by
one class, jealousy and hatred by the others; the intercourse between rich and poor becomes less frequent and less
kind, and rents are raised. This is not the consequence of a democratic revolution, but its certain harbinger; for an
aristocracy which has lost the affections of the people, once and forever, is like a tree dead at the root, which is
the more easily torn up by the winds the higher its branches have spread.

In the course of the last fifty years the rents of farms have amazingly increased, not only in France but throughout
the greater part of Europe. The remarkable improvements which have taken place in agriculture and manufactures within
the same period do not suffice in my opinion to explain this fact; recourse must be had to another cause more powerful
and more concealed. I believe that cause is to be found in the democratic institutions which several European nations
have adopted, and in the democratic passions which more or less agitate all the rest. I have frequently heard great
English landowners congratulate themselves that, at the present day, they derive a much larger income from their
estates than their fathers did. They have perhaps good reasons to be glad; but most assuredly they know not what they
are glad of. They think they are making a clear gain, when it is in reality only an exchange; their influence is what
they are parting with for cash; and what they gain in money will ere long be lost in power.

There is yet another sign by which it is easy to know that a great democratic revolution is going on or approaching.
In the Middle Ages almost all lands were leased for lives, or for very long terms; the domestic economy of that period
shows that leases for ninety-nine years were more frequent then than leases for twelve years are now. Men then believed
that families were immortal; men’s conditions seemed settled forever, and the whole of society appeared to be so fixed,
that it was not supposed that anything would ever be stirred or shaken in its structure. In ages of equality, the human
mind takes a different bent; the prevailing notion is that nothing abides, and man is haunted by the thought of
mutability. Under this impression the landowner and the tenant himself are instinctively averse to protracted terms of
obligation; they are afraid of being tied up tomorrow by the contract which benefits them today. They have vague
anticipations of some sudden and unforeseen change in their conditions; they mistrust themselves; they fear lest their
taste should change, and lest they should lament that they cannot rid themselves of what they coveted; nor are such
fears unfounded, for in democratic ages that which is most fluctuating amidst the fluctuation of all around is the
heart of man.